Uruz upright
Raw physical force and health. Untamed vitality — the strength that exists before anyone shapes it.
Rune 2 of 24 · Freyr's Aett
ᚢ Uruz rune meaning
Uruz rune meaning: raw physical force and health. Its name is read as “aurochs, wild strength”; it is rune 2 of 24, in Freyr's Aett, with the sound u. Reversed: strength misapplied, or weakness and illness.
- Place in the row
- 2 of 24 Freyr's Aett, aett 1
- Sound
- u said OO-rooz
- Rune poems
- 3 of 3 named ur · úr
- Read as
- Aurochs, wild strength from the rune’s name
Dickins, Runic and Heroic Poems, 1915.
Uruz reversed
Strength misapplied, or weakness and illness. Force used where restraint was wanted.
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Where Uruz sits in the Elder Futhark
Uruz is rune 2, the second of the eight in Freyr's Aett, between Fehu and Thurisaz.
Position in the row2 of 24
AettFreyr's Aett
SoundU
Literal meaningAurochs, wild strength
ElementEarth
Can be reversedYes
In a reading
What Uruz usually means when you draw it
Uruz points to raw strength, health and endurance. It often appears when a challenge requires physical or mental stamina rather than cleverness.
Uruz in love
Passion and vitality; a relationship tested and strengthened by effort.
Uruz at work
Taking on a demanding task and having the strength to see it through.
Advice
Build your strength before you spend it.
Primary source
What the rune poems say about Uruz
In brief, the Anglo-Saxon verse pictures the aurochs as a proud, fierce wild ox with great horns, roaming the moorland and fighting for its ground.
“The aurochs is proud and has great horns; it is a very savage beast and fights with its horns; a great ranger of the moors, it is a creature of mettle.”
Ur byþ anmod ond oferhyrned,
felafrecne deor, feohteþ mid hornum
mære morstapa; þæt is modig wuht.
“Dross comes from bad iron; the reindeer often races over the frozen snow.”
Úr er af illu jarne;
opt løypr ræinn á hjarne.
“Shower — lamentation of the clouds and ruin of the hay-harvest and abomination of the shepherd.”
Úr er skýja grátr
ok skára þverrir
ok hirðis hatr.
Bruce Dickins, Runic and Heroic Poems of the Old Teutonic Peoples (Cambridge University Press, 1915) — read the original text.
Both the original texts and the translations are from Dickins’s edition. The Anglo-Saxon verse is about the aurochs; in the Norwegian poem úr is dross from bad iron, in the Icelandic a shower of rain. Where the three rune poems come from
Uruz in the three rune poems, side by side
The three poems read Uruz three different ways: the aurochs, dross from bad iron and a shower.
| Source | Name | The verse is about |
|---|---|---|
| Elder Futhark name (reconstructed) | Uruz | aurochs, wild strength |
| Anglo-Saxon rune poem | ur | the aurochs |
| Norwegian rune poem | úr | dross from bad iron |
| Icelandic rune poem | úr | a shower |
Subjects in the words of Dickins’s 1915 translation; the first row is the modern reconstructed name and reading.
Calculated
Uruz by the numbers
Uruz turns up 16 times as the rune of the day in 2026, above the even share of 15.2 — joint 10th of 24 with 5 others. It lies reversed on 4 of them. February is its busiest month, with 3. Its longest gap between draws, from May 30 to July 23, spans 54 days.
Position in the row
2 of 24
Odds of drawing it
1 in 24 · 4.17%
Rune of the day in 2026
16 times · 4.38%
Reversed on those days
4 of 16
Can be reversed
Yes
Days in 2026:
- Jan 2 (rev.), 16
- Feb 3, 8 (rev.), 20
- Mar 5
- Apr 1
- May 7, 13, 30
- Jul 23 (rev.)
- Sep 13, 18 (rev.), 30
- Nov 2
- Dec 3
Which runes can be reversed, and how the daily draw is fixed →
What happened to it
Uruz after the Elder Futhark
In the Younger Futhark
Survived as úr, but the meaning shifted from aurochs to drizzle or slag — the animal was extinct in Scandinavia by then.
Worth knowing
The aurochs itself died out in 1627; the rune outlived the beast it named.
Uruz: deity, tree and element
Pronounced
OO-rooz
Deity
Thor
Tree
Birch
Element
Earth
The poem above is a source; this table is a twentieth-century reconstruction.
How to type the Uruz rune
| Character | ᚢ |
|---|---|
| Code point | U+16A2 |
| Unicode name | RUNIC LETTER URUZ UR U |
| HTML | ᚢ or ᚢ |
Besides Uruz, the official name lists Ur, a name the same stave carries in another row or poem.
Copy the character, or paste the code into a web page; it shows wherever a font covers the Runic block, added in Unicode 3.0.
Sources
- Bruce Dickins, Runic and Heroic Poems of the Old Teutonic Peoples (Cambridge University Press, 1915)
Statements of fact on this page were checked against these sources in October 2026. How we choose and check sources: editorial policy.
Cite this page
AstroHot. “Uruz Rune Meaning: Aurochs, Wild Strength.” Accessed October 28, 2026. https://astrohot.com/runes/uruz/
For Wikipedia
{{cite web |title=Uruz Rune Meaning: Aurochs, Wild Strength |url=https://astrohot.com/runes/uruz/ |website=AstroHot |access-date=2026-10-28}}